’You are actually flying’: Students test hovercrafts they built
By Jamie Forsythe

twice, but he quickly gets the hang
of maneuvering the hovercraft in
circles around the baseball diamond.
BELLEVILLE, Ill. — EighthAfter making several laps, Tyler
grader Cayla Adams sports a red
batting helmet as she steps onto a emerges from the hovercraft covbaseball diamond in Belleville, Ill. ered in dust from the field. “It was
fun,” he exclaims.
But Cayla wasn’t stepping up
Nigel Rice, who is also an
to bat. Instead, she climbs into a
large, blue hovercraft designed by eighth-grader at Emge, commands the hovercraft next. Afterfellow Belle Valley eighth-grade
ward, he wobbles out. “I can’t feel
students. She successfully completes a lap around the field before my legs,” he says.
Cayla, Tyler and Nigel were
the supervising adults realize a
among 18 students from Harcouple essential bolts had fallen
mony-Emge, Signal Hill and
off.
Belle Valley school districts
After a quick run to get two
who participated in a two-week
more bolts, Emge Junior High
Derik Holtmann / Belleville News-Democrat student Tyler Adams mans the
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Camp for
hovercraft. He gets off to a rocky
Student Wade Cook on the baseball field with one of the hovercrafts that
academically talented and highly
start, getting stuck in the grass
students built during a STEM summer camp in June in Belleville, Ill.
Belleville News-Democrat

motivated students. The students
participating in the program were
selected by district officials. The
program ended Friday with the
demonstration of the hovercrafts.
“It’s an enrichment program to
challenge some of the kids that are
already at the top of their grade
levels,” explained Camp Director Bryan Snow, the technology
director for both Harmony and
Signal Hill school districts.
During the camp, a collaboration among all three schools districts, the students learned about
and constructed hovercrafts.
Snow described a hovercraft as
“an air cushion vehicle that uses
a skirt and airflow to pick it up off

STEM / C4

Movie Review

A hopeful
beginning
‘Man of Steel’ a land of
grandeur, if not details

T

here’s something intrinsically hopeful about
Superman. Maybe it’s the
All-American, Kansasfarm-boy demeanor. (He’s
no Dark Knight,
that’s for sure.)
Maybe it’s the
sloganeering:
“Truth, justice
and the American way.” Maybe
it’s that he strikes
a chord with a
Dominic
nation of immi- Baez
grants, remindThe Daily News
ing us very few
of us were here
to begin with.
Maybe it’s just
‘Monsters’
knowing no matmaintain
ter the odds, no
box
office
matter the evil,
Superman — the
dominance
epitome of goodPage C4
ness and what we
as humans strive
to achieve — will
always prevail because Superman
“is as strong as he needs to be.”
So maybe that’s why we’re so
hopeful for a 21st-century Superman movie that reminds just how
great our hero can be. And maybe
that’s why we’re always a bit disappointed with what we’ve gotten
so far.
In 2006, we got the flop that
was “Superman Returns.” This
time around, “Man of Steel” — directed by Zack Synder of “300”
fame, written by collaborators
David S. Goyer and Christopher
Nolan of “The Dark Knight,” along
with being produced by Nolan
— was our summer foray into the
realm of the last son of Krypton.
And while we got a gorgeous
background, a powerhouse cast
and a bevy of explosions and supersonic fistfights, we didn’t get
what matters most when it comes
to Superman: the details. It matters little how powerful Superman
is if we don’t connect with him.
And other than the Man of Steel’s
fist colliding with everything in
sight, there’s little connecting going on here.
“Man of Steel” tells a strippeddown, straightforward story of
Clark Kent (known as Kal-El on
his homeworld) from his harrowing birth to his spectacular revealing to humanity as an alien. Henry
Cavill, known for his role on “The
Tudors” and starring in “Immortals,” dons the iconic red and blue
as Kent/Kal-El/Superman. A bit
of an enigma, Cavill possesses
a striking look and air of otherworldliness to him that fits the
role. The character’s flaws, some
of which are jarring, have little to
do with Cavill. Instead, a confusing back story and mixed messages about morality and justice
fog the higher road that Superman
is famous for taking.
“Man of Steel” starts with a
special-effects-heavy bang —
well, whatever sound a space gun
makes. It opens with an attempted coup against a near-calcified
council on a collapsing planet;
one side isn’t agile enough to save
the planet, while the other is too
short-sighted to do anything
useful. And in the middle stands
Jor-El (Russell Crowe), father

Inside

Baez / C4

Roger Werth / The Daily News

Krystyana Temple, left, continues to volunteer at St. John Medical Center even though her required community service hours are
completed. Here, she prepares to wheel a discharged patient to the parking garage.

The Road Less Smooth
Kelso grad toughs it out for scholarships, dream of being a doc
By Cathy Zimmerman
czimmerman@tdn.com

E

very spring the exceptional youth
march across newsprint at about
the time they march across a stage
for a diploma. Accolades pile up for the
A’s they earned, their prowess in football
or physics and their plans for a bright
future.
Few focus on things they cannot do, or
don’t ever want to do.
Except for Krystyana Temple.
The 17-year-old from Kelso has the
creds — National Honor Society, high
SAT scores, several college scholarships
and a diploma earned after three years in

it. It was always whether or not we’d be
able to make this payment or deal with
that ...”
high school and 40 Running Start credits
In the sixth grade, just before the anat Lower Columbia College.
nual class trek to outdoor camp, Temple
Still, she seasons her accomplishments got hit by a car ... and went to Cispus on
with a dash of reality.
crutches. She got on the wrestling team
“One thing I can’t do — I can’t spell,”
in eighth grade ... and got a concussion.
Temple interjected in an interview last
Even Temple’s choice of a career in
month.
health care is informed by things she’d
“I also have number dyslexia. Most
rather steer clear of.
of the time it’s not too bad. I stare at the
She decided not to be a trauma nurse,
problem for three minutes and check
she said, “because there would be people
it across. I always hand in my work” as
I couldn’t help.” If she were to became
proof of how an answer was arrived at.
a veterinarian — she loves animals
Temple played volleyball and was a
— “there are those I couldn’t save.”
violinist in the school orchestra from
Temple really liked the study of anatofourth grade on, she said. “But there were my, however. “I get to see how everything
quite a few school things I didn’t get to
Krystyana / C2
participate in because we couldn’t afford

It’s summer: Teach kids how to walk to school safely
By Dave Scott

“Because we don’t have a Safety Town (a program offering safety tips), it is up to parents to
teach their children how to walk to and from
school safely. Just like if children have homework
from school, (parents) should be working with
them on these activities. They should rehearse
with their children walking to and from school.”

mer, Lisa Pardi says now is the
time for the community, particularly parents, to take to the
streets and get kids ready for safe
AKRON, Ohio — You’re 5
trips to school in the fall.
years old, weigh about 50 pounds
Pardi is injury prevention
and have to jump to see over the
coordinator for the Safe Kids
hood of an SUV. It’s time to step
Coalition of Summit County,
off a curb on your way to school,
Ohio. She says parents have the
and it’s just a bit scary. There is
first responsibility to teach kids
no one there to hold your hand,
safety concepts but acknowllook both ways and put you on
your way to learning your ABCs.
— Lisa Pardi, injury prevention coordinator for the edges they need help.
“I think it does take a commuIn this imperfect world, many
Safe Kids Coalition of Summit County, Ohio
nity to raise children,” she said.
children have no companion to
And she said the parents who
help get them safely through the
So it’s not unusual to see tiny
and poor children are more likely think it’s OK to send young kids
neighborhood. Parents often
children walking alone to area
to walk — and more likely to be
off to school by themselves need
must be at work before school
schools.
hurt.
some education themselves.
starts or must stay on the job
Previous Beacon Journal stoIn Akron, Ohio, where busing
“We have the recommendauntil long after school lets out.
tion that children under 10 do
Some families have only one par- ries have shown how dangerous is rare, a student is hit by a veent, and sometimes there aren’t walking to school can be, and the hicle on an average of once every not walk alone, and in addition,
older kids to walk with a younger newspaper’s analysis of statistics 12 days.
Walking / C4
shows that African-American
With school out for the sumone.
Akron Beacon Journal

C4 MONDAY, JULY 1, 2013

The Daily News, Longview, Wash.

The Daily News online: www.tdn.com

Friends take fashion to the streets
By Diane Mastrull

delphia’ Old City is a mix of their
designs and others’ — all on display
whichever way they choose. InPHILADELPHIA — This friend- spired in part by a retailing trend
ship started as so many do between and by a more risk-averse business
attitude they have adopted — call
high school girls: Abby Kessler
it maturity, perhaps — the pair are
liked Katie Loftus’ clothes and
about to take a novel approach to
makeup; Loftus liked Kessler’s.
expansion.
“That’s all I cared about,” KesIn what is believed to be a first
sler, now 34, recalled recently.
in Philadelphia, Smak Parlour is
“That, and boys.”
going mobile, taking a page from
The North Penn High School
a commercial sector that has exgraduates went on to Drexel Uniploded in growth on city streets:
versity together to study design
and merchandising, and then on to lunch trucks.
Kessler and her now-married
New York to work in the garment
friend and business partner, Katie
industry.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Lubieski, just got a city license to
park and operate on weekdays on
2001, inspired them to move back
40th Street, between Spruce and
to Philadelphia and start a line of
Locust Streets, a truck version of
edgy, embellished T-shirts. By
day, they worked at Nordstrom; by their frilly, heavy-in-pink-decor
boutique.
night, they were jazzing up shirts,
Smak Parlour will park bumperusually in the basement of Loftus’
to-bumper with mobile vendors
mother.
They managed to get their Smak that lure the hungry from the Uniline in 20 stores but chafed against versity of Pennsylvania. Equipped
with sales racks and dressing
the lack of control over display of
rooms, it will roll by the end of
their creations. So they opened a
store of their own in Philadelphia, June, maybe sooner, depending on
putting $60,000 in start-up costs the pace of retrofitting. You can
keep tabs on Facebook and at www.
on credit cards.
twitter.com/smakparlour.
“We had no money,” Kessler
“I think it’s the future — going
said. “We were fearless.”
mobile, being at the right spot at
Eight years later, their Smak
Parlour at 219 Market St. in Phila- the right time,” Kessler said.
The Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s already the rage in Los Angeles, which was well ahead of Philadelphia in the gourmet-food-truck
movement.
“It makes a lot of business
sense,” said Natalie Nixon, director of Philadelphia University’s
Strategic Design MBA program and
a professor of fashion-industry
management. “It really decreases
certain overhead costs. Certainly,
it’s going to be an option more for
small/medium enterprises because
the cost of doing business in this
economy is becoming more and
more prohibitive. And it’s a way
for new entrepreneurs to launch a
business.”
Although Smak Parlour paid
nearly $3,000 for the privilege to
park and sell curbside for a year in
University City, the truck won’t be
anchored there, its owners said.
“You go where your customers
are,” Kessler said. “We’re just going
to drive around and see where it’s
most successful.”
This summer, visits to the Jersey
Shore and street fairs are planned.
The idea to take their store on
the road started with Lubieski and
Kessler’s desire to add a second
retail location for Smak Parlour,
which also has an online store
(www.smakparlour.com). But
where they were looking — Ard-

more, for instance — the rents were
more than twice what they pay in
Old City, they said.
So they went shopping. For less
than $10,000, they bought a 2006
GMC 5500 diesel box truck — 18
feet long by 8 feet high — with
183,000 miles on it. It was last used
by the Salvation Army.
“We thought it had good karma,”
Lubieski, 34, said.
Said Kessler: “It’s super big and
badass-looking.”
Among those impressed with
the idea is Patricia Blakely, executive director of the Merchants
Fund, which has provided a
$20,000 grant for the truck’s fitout.
“The owners of Smak Parlour
are the cleverest example of what
every smart retailer needs to be nimble,” Blakely said in an e-mail.
“In this changing economy, they
have been able to open a women’s
clothing and accessories business, be successful, grow sales, and
change the model to respond to
consumer demand. The new mobile clothing business means they
can take the store to the customers
all wrapped in the best customer
service. So smart!
“We see this as an emerging
trend in retail — and we wanted to
be in on the ground floor,” she said.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Superman, played by Henry Cavill, prepares for an encounter in ‘Man of Steel.’

Baez
FROM C1

‘The Heat’ hot, but ‘Monsters’ rules
LOS ANGELES — Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy
brought “The Heat” against
Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx
at the box office.
The Fox action-comedy starring
the funny ladies as mismatched
detectives earned $40 million
in second place in its opening
weekend, topping the $25.7 million debut haul of Sony’s “White
House Down,” according to studio estimates Sunday.
The Disney-Pixar animated prequel “Monsters University” remained box-office valedictorian
in its second weekend, earning
$46.1 million in first place.
As for “The Heat,” employing
two female leads to buck the
male-dominated buddy-cop formula paid off in ticket sales.
“White House Down,” which
features Tatum as a wannabe
Secret Service agent and Foxx
as the President of the United
States of America, was inaugurated below expectations in
fourth place. The film’s White
House takeover plot is strikingly
similar to FilmDistrict’s “Olympus Has Fallen,” which opened
in March and starred Gerard

to Kal-El and one of Krypton’s brightest scientists.
Aware of his home’s imminent destruction, he and
his wife, Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer), decide to vest
their hopes and dreams
with their newly born son.
They send him toward a
solar system with a young,
yellow sun and a blue
planet with “a seemingly
intelligent population”
with a distinct distrust of
anything alien.
On Earth, Kevin Costner
and Diane Lane portray
Jonathan and Martha Kent,
Clark’s human parents
and moral beacons. The
story takes a jumping sort
of narrative, transitioning
between Clark’s youth as
an awkward and confused
child and present-day
shenanigans. Other human
compatriots partaking in
Superman’s story include
the ever-savvy reporter
Lois Lane (Amy Adams),
Air Force Col. Nathan
editor Perry White (LauHardy (Chris Meloni) and
rence Fishburne). Lois,
Daily Planet newspaper
known for her tenacity and

STEM

principles that govern how a
hovercraft works, including
lift, thrust and buoyancy at
FROM C1
Emge Junior High.
During the afternoon
the surface and also to pro- portion of the program, the
pel it.”
students worked on conHe said a hovercraft is
structing a hovercraft with
different from an airboat,
help from Snow, teachers
which is pushed through
Jill Mathenia from Ellis
the water with a propeller.
Elementary School, Matt
“With the hovercraft, you Zipfel from Signal Hill, and
are actually flying over the
Josh Strausbaugh from Belle
top of whatever surface you Valley and AmeriCorps volare on,” Snow said. “It’s one unteer Sarah James.
of the very few amphibious
“All the kids have been
vehicles.”
really excited to build every
Every morning of the
day,” Snow said. “We have a
camp, the students learned good group of kids.”
about science and math
The students worked in

Butler and Aaron Eckhart.“Man
of Steel” is still flying high in its
third week, coming in fifth place
with $20.8 million in North
America and $52.2 million in
such international markets as
Australia, Sweden and China.
The Warner Bros. retelling of
Superman’s origin passed the
$500 million mark on Saturday.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and
Canadian theaters, according
to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released
on Monday.
1. “Monsters University,” $46.1
million
2. “The Heat,” $40 million.
3. “World War Z,” $29.8 million
4. “White House Down,” $25.7
million
5. “Man of Steel,” $20.8 million
6. “This Is the End,” $8.7 million.
7. “Now You See Me,” $5.5 million
8. “Fast & Furious 6,” $2.4 million
9. “Star Trek: Into Darkness,” $2
million
10. “The Internship,” $1.4 million

— The Associated Press

doggedness, is seeking answers about the discovery
of what may be an alien

teams of six to build a hovercraft. Each team consisted
of two students from each
of the school districts. The
teams — Superman, The
Force and Rocketman Rockets — were named by the
students.
The large hovercrafts,
which were 6 foot by 4 foot,
were built using Styrofoam,
plywood, fiberglass, bolts,
nuts, screws and a lot of
Gorilla glue, Zipfel said, and
rubber tubing for the skirt
underneath.
The ultralight propeller
and the small gas-powered
engine were the only two
items not constructed by

craft in Arctic, and she
spars with both the colonel
and her editor every step of
the way. “Aliens?” they ask
skeptically. Can you blame
them? Well, as it would
happen...
And as one thing leads
to another, we’re introduced to memories of
Krypton’s past, as General
Zod (a chilling Michael
Shannon) locates Kal-El
and seeks to relieve him
of his humanity. The action comes nearly nonstop
after this. And that’s not a
good thing.
The issue here lies at the
merging between haphazard direction, over-the-top
allegories and chaotic destruction. Part of the draw
of Superman and his Clark
Kent persona comes from
his near-naivety, his belief
in the simplest of truths:
that humans are, at their
core, a species capable of
great things.
But in a world surrounded by superbeings
absorbing their terrifying power from our very
sun, it’s hard to not feel
as though humans have
a small role in this story.
We’re restrained, a senti-

the students. Zipfel said the
hovercrafts have the potential to travel up to 30 mph.
The teams put their hovercraft creations to the test
during land competition
Friday at Belle Valley. Camp
organizers opted not to test
the devices on water.
Signal Hill eighth-grader
Annabelle Heddell said her
team’s hovercraft, a red one
built by Rocketman Rockets,
made it through over an hour
of competition before a propeller mishap occurred and
took it out of commission.
The hovercraft for the
Superman team didn’t
make it into the competi-

ment Superman knows
well. After all, it’s hard to
maintain some mode of
secrecy and normalcy if
you go all meta-human on
anyone who gets in your
face. But you know who
doesn’t show restraint?
Director Snyder. Instead of
character development or
solid plot structure, we get
obscene destruction ranging from natural disasters
to alien gravity weapons.
It’s all too much, and yet
too little. The things that
matter were overshadowed
by the summer-blockbuster-required effects we
could have done without.
It’s all prologue for what’s
apparently supposed to be
a franchise, but it doesn’t
tell us enough. Still, it’s
better than its 2006 predecessor, and maybe a
sequel will build upon the
foundation “Man of Steel”
has laid.
Here’s to hoping.
Two less-than-super
stars out of five.
Dominic Baez is a copy editor for The Daily News.
His email is dominic.baez@
tdn.com. For more of his
reviews, visit tdn.com.

tion, Cayla said. It was used
for parts to help the other
hovercrafts. “We weren’t
very good at measurements,” she admitted.
Cayla and Nigel said they
enjoyed getting to meet students from other schools.
“It was fun getting to meet
a lot of new people with the
same interests,” Cayla said.
Even though this was the
first year for the program
locally, Snow operated a
similar program when he
was at Southern Illinois
University Carbondale.
The cost of the two-week
program was covered by
a grant from the National

Walking
FROM C1
when I say that, it doesn’t
mean a 5-year-old should
be walking with another 5year-old. We want someone
who is over the age of 10
with that small person.”
When school is out it’s
a good time for parents to
walk their children to school
using each moment to point
out the dangers and the safe
practices that will serve
them a lifetime. In summer,
kids are heading to playgrounds and friends’ houses
instead.
Pardi’s organization
sponsors Walk This Way, a
program that offers safety
tips as part of International
Walk to School Day. Unfortunately, it’s one day at
one school in October, two
months after the start of
school.
Many communities also
have a more comprehensive program called Safety
Town that is sponsored by
community service groups.
Children walk through miniature, make-believe towns
with streets, sidewalks,
traffic signals and vehicles.
Those tend to be in
wealthier suburbs, where
children seldom have to
navigate busy streets. In
some places, like Akron,
where most children walk,
there is no such program.
“Because we don’t have a
Safety Town, it is up to parents to teach their children
how to walk to and from
school safely,” Pardi said.
“Just like if children have
homework from school,
(parents) should be working
with them on these activities. They should rehearse
with their children walking
to and from school.”
One trip is not enough;
families must take multiple
trips for the lessons to sink
in.
It’s also important to
know the school parking
lot has its dangers, too. It is
common to see children run
between cars.
“Even though we try to
teach them, sometimes
they are excited and they are
ready to go and have somewhere to be, and they will
run out and not pay attention,” Pardi said.
She said some families
choose to enroll children in
latch-key programs to allow
parents to work full shifts.
Even driving is not entirely safe. Pardi said she
sees parents who drive their
kids often allowing the children to ride in the front seat
when they should be in the
back and in a booster seat.
Dorothy Chlad, Safety
Town’s national president,
started with Safety Town in
1964 and learned a lot about
child development as the
group evolved.
She told the Beacon
Journal earlier this year that
children must be shown safe
practices repeatedly before
they absorb the concepts.
She also found parents
don’t always know the entire lesson. For example,
she heard parents warning
to “look both ways” only to
find the children walking
into the street — and danger
— as they looked left and
right.
Chlad tried to start Safety
Town in Akron years ago,
but it failed to catch on.
Some organizations
charge up to $40 per child,
but she disputed the idea it
must be so expensive. Some
communities used chalk on
a playground and cardboard
boxes to represent vehicles
in the creation of the tiny
town children could walk
through.
Both Chlad and Pardi
emphasized that walking is
healthy for children; it just
needs to be made safer.

Defense Education Program thanks to the efforts
of Cynthia Doil at Scott Air
Force Base.
“The earlier we get students interested in science
and math,” Doil said, the
more likely they are to pursue a career in those fields.
Organizers of the program have already secured
some funding to do the
hovercraft camp again
next summer, according to
Snow. In addition, he said it
may be expanded to accommodate more students.
Overall, Tyler said the experience was fun. “I learned
new things I didn’t know